2006 Nissan Altima - Thrown rod?

My Nissan Altima list pressure while I was driving it so I immediately pulled over to the side and called a tow truck to tow my car to a safe place now my car will still crank but makes a little knocking noise, have I thrown a rod?

Does the RRRrrRrrrRRRrrRRRrrr cranking sound uneven?

No, but you need new bearings. Though many people will say it’s not a long-term fix, I would let down the oil pan, clean up the crankshaft journals with 1000-grit abrasive cloth, and change the rod bearings from below. If it wasn’t knocking for too long, you might get away with this type of repair.

Maybe, I can’t hear it from here.

First I can’t see how you can hear a knocking just while cranking and not starting. Second, you lost pressure and have not figured out why yet and corrected the problem. Low or no oil,etc. so if you still have a pressure problem, the bearings are still starved for oil. I’m not a mechanic so don’t know if the knocking would go away if the oil pressure is restored. Usually knocking happens first and then the rod shatters and blows a hole in the block. So maybe that’s why you have no oil pressure.

Check oil level.

If you THREW a rod, there would be a new hole in the oil pan or engine block. That could make a knocking noise as you crank it.

If you damaged a rod bearing…called a spun rod bearing, you would hear a knocking noise at idle.

Either way, you need an expensive difficult repair

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People do stuff like this with Geo Metros quite frequently and results are mixed. Sometimes it will go 100,000 miles and sometimes not. If the car is nearing the end of its life, a quick and dirty fix might be OK to keep it going until the end. If in good shape, maybe put some money into it and do it right. Used cars are stupid expensive right now so repairing something like this might not have made sense a few years ago but does now.

I had a small engine I got in a bucket that had thrown a rod through the block. I had the block welded, replaced the rod, and it worked for the short time I had it. I don’t think I’d do that with a 16 year old car but if you are doing it on your own time, up to you, but first you have to have someone actually figure out what happened. So a tow and $100 diagnostic fee is the first step.

I saw someone replace a rod in a mower and JB Weld the small crack in the block. It worked fine. They honed the cylinder, replaced the rings, rod, and whatever else was needed.

I think they spent more than they could have found a free or junk mower for but they just wanted to do it which is all good. I seem to always be able to find a mower out at the curb with a gunked up carb when I need one. Once I found one that ran but the deck was rusted and one corner/wheel had come completely off. I needed the engine so took the thing home, did an engine swap, and then scrapped the old deck and bad engine from the good deck.

It was a snowblower that I fixed up for my dad. Then it looked so nice he traded it in for a new one. Got $50 or something for it. Could have saved me a little work.

I had another engine when I was a kid. I just don’t remember the circumstances now, maybe I bought it used or something, but a friends dad just patched the hole in the block. Brass patch with gasket and tapped in screws. That worked too. Anything to plug the hole but welding is better if aluminum fear about $10. Not ok for a cast iron block. I never threw a rod on my own engines though. Check oil and don’t get stupid.